The grave
by RiderArya103
Summary: Deep in the forest, hidden far away, there was a grave which no one but she had ever known about. And now she came to it, at last, after ten long years of waiting. Arya's first visit to Fäolin's grave makes her remember ... Oneshot.


Hello everyone!

This is an idea that I've had for a while, but not until now have I managed to express it in the right way. Just remember, when you read, that this is how I imagine the meeting between Arya and Fäolin; it does not have to be true. It most definitely isn't true either.

And another thing - I'm changing from third person perspective to first person in the middle of the story, and there are probably some people out there who don't like that kind of thing. Just don't yell at me too much for it, okay?

Finally, I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas!

The grave

The gentle evening breeze came rushing through the wide expanse of the clearing, stirring the leaves of all the tall and majestic trees that grew around it and making them whisper faintly and mysteriously. From somewhere deep in the forest, a place that no eyes could reach, there came several snapping sounds as twigs were broken by an animal running across the ground. High in the air, a bird trilled out the last notes of his song, before withdrawing into his nest to go to sleep, just like most of the forest's inhabitants had done by now.

Only very few living beings were still awake, and among them was a lonely elf. She walked, her back straight and proud, her eyes staring coldly ahead of her and her stride long and purposeful, out from the shadow of the trees surrounding the clearing and across the bare ground. It would have been hard to find anything in this wilderness that was interesting enough to be her goal, and yet she seemed to know exactly where her steps were leading her. Her eyes were two sparkling emeralds in her face, her hair a raven black wave falling down her slender back. She wore a simple, green dress that blended in easily with the forest around her. Nothing about her really suggested that she was a figure of great importance in Du Weldenvarden - the forest of the elves - except for the way she held her body as she walked. The pride was an unmistakable sign. A sign that she was no ordinary elf. A sign that whatever she had come out here, into this uninhabited part of the forest, to do was something that would not pass unnoticed.

But it was not only the pride that would have drawn people's eyes to her, if there had been any people in the clearing to watch her now. It was the expression on her face as well. The expression that had, as she left the shelter of the trees, been nothing but blank and cold, but which no longer was. It shifted, as the elven lady no longer had the strength to keep her mask in place, to one of immense grief. Her eyes had no tears in them, but it was easy to see that they were not far away now. Maybe they would fall when the elf reached her goal? Or maybe they would never fall?

And then, finally, the elven woman stopped, at no sign that anyone but she herself would have been able to detect. She knelt down on the ground at the other end of the clearing, placing her hands against the cold, damp earth. Opening her mouth, she began to sing, letting her voice ring out into the night with all its pain and sorrow.

"Open!" she sang. "Open to me, for I have come at last. Open to me, whom you left so fast. Open now, for it is I, your friend. Open now, for we are close to the end."

As though in response to the woman's song, the earth beneath her fingers started to shift. The movement did not shake the ground, and it was nothing that you would notice if you stood more than a few metres away from where the woman sat. Again and again, she sang the lines of her song, and with each time, the hole in the ground in front of her deepened. Finally, after having sung the song for the fourth time, the woman fell silent. Apparently, the hole in the ground was as deep as she wanted it by now.

There was nothing to see in that gaping hole, but the woman still seemed to have found what she was looking for. Her hand reached down into the blackness, coming up with something in it. Something that was shining, even in the darkness of the night. Something that looked as though it had a life of its own.

It was a flower. Just one single blossom, its black petals closed as it rested upon her palm. It was a flower that any elf who had learnt to manipulate plants would have been able to create with ease. But still, the elven lady had come all this way from Ellesméra, simply to find this very flower. Because no other plant would have made it possible for her to recall the things she wanted to remember tonight, to relive the memories she wanted to see. Here, sitting so utterly alone in the stillness of the night, knowing that the chance of anyone finding her here was as minimal as it was ever going to get, she could remember again without feeling any fear.

And so, Arya, new queen of Du Weldenvarden, Rider of Fírnen, the green dragon, closed her eyes and lost herself in the vaults of her memory. As she remembered, she started speaking, telling the story that flowed into her mind.

...

It was the lightest day of the year. On this day, it would never turn properly dark. Only a faint twilight would wrap itself around the forest, as the birds kept on singing and the elves - my own people - kept on dancing and celebrating. Celebrating that we had reached the middle of the summer, that all those plants which we loved and cared for so much were as healthy as they were ever going to get. This was the time of year when most happiness permeated the forest of Du Weldenvarden. Or, it would have been, if it had not been for the war that kept raging on and on, just outside our country's borders.

I had been part of these celebrations too, but by this time, I was tired of it all. I never could bring myself to have much patience with all those noble men and women that my mother wanted me to see and get to know. I could never get to know them, and they could never get to know me. Not in the sense that I wanted, anyway. I could learn their titles, and I could find out what they had done to gain their high positions and earn the queens liking and trust. But that had never been enough for me. Never enough to trust any of them. For I did not know what their feelings towards me truly were. And nor was I allowed to show them exactly what thoughts they woke in my mind.

So I had wandered away on my own, in a moment when my mother had looked the other way and so was unaware of what I was doing. For surely, she would not approve of my decision. Nor was it simply because that would take away her chance of presenting me as 'the queen's daughter', 'heir to the elven throne' and all that other nonsense. It was the very place where I was - the wild forest, the forest that not even any of us could hope to know everything about. She had never enjoyed me leaving Ellesméra - or even walking too far away for her to keep her eyes on me, for that matter. It simply was not in her nature to let me go, I guess.

But nevertheless, her way of trying to protect me only made the restlessness within me grow even higher. Did she not understand that? Could she not see? Was she so blind, that she missed all her silly ideas really were doing to me? I knew the answer to all those questions even before I asked them to myself. Of course she was that blind. Of course she was that unaware. And of course she did not understand.

"Arya."

The soft, musical voice spoke out of the darkness behind me, making me jump and instantly whirl around, instinctively raising my hands to defend myself from any coming danger. It was a movement I had practiced so many times, that it had turned into an instinct rather than anything I had to think consciously about. How strange it was, I mused to myself, that I would react this way even though I had never been in any truly dangerous situation.

The silver-haired elf who stood before me was not one I recognized. Or else, I had merely forgotten him, a possibility that did not seem unlikely to me. He was young. Not as young as I was, but still younger than most of the elves I had seen. There was a smile on his face. Not one of those strained, courteous smiles that I had come to hate so much, but a warm expression. He was showing genuine joy over having found me here, on my own.

"May good fortune rule over you", the man said in his rich, melodious voice, somehow very different from most elves' voices.

"May the stars watch over you", I replied, and we both touched our lips with two fingers.

Then, he suddenly put all the formalities aside, which made me respect him even more than I already did.

"How come you are wandering here all alone in the night?" he asked. "Don't you think that you ought to be celebrating this day?"

"I have been celebrating", I responded. "But I must admit that I have grown tired of it all by now. It goes on for so long! I guess I have never been the right person for feasts and celebrations."

If we had not been so alone in the forest, and if the sun had been filtering through the canopy of leaves above our heads instead of the faint light from the moon, I would have regretted the words. But now, oddly enough, I did not. I felt, instead, that they had been absolutely right.

The man seemed to feel that way too. I don't know what made me so certain, as I had no way of telling whether I was right or wrong. but I knew that my words had had the right effect on him - the effect I wanted them to have. It made him understand me, not doubt or question me.

The man held out his hand to me then, and on his palm, there lay a flower that I did not entirely recognize. I knew that I had known its name once, but it had slipped away from me now, mixed up as it was with hundreds of other names for plants and trees. Such things happen sometimes, even to elves.

The petals of the flower were completely black, and they were closed around the blossom. With one hand, I reached out and took the flower this strange man was giving me.

"It is a black morning glory", the man told me, making me wonder if he had somehow seen my failed attempts at finding a name for the flower I was holding. "I thought the colour suited you."

"Thank you", I said, a warmth that I did not at all recognize blossoming in my chest.

Then, the man gave a sudden laugh. For an elf, he was very different, and to me, that was never a bad thing.

"I am so sorry", he said. "I completely forgot to introduce myself, as I had planned to do before I gave you the flower. My name is Fäolin."

He smiled again, and this time I felt the corners of my own mouth turn up as well.

"And mine is Arya", I said, ignoring the fact that he probably already knew who I was.

...

That was the way it had been, thought Arya to herself as she finished her little tale. He had given her that flower the first time they had ever met, and yet she had never considered it strange or inappropriate. Not for him, for it was so like him to do such a thing.

And now, that same flower had been resting here, in this secluded, but somehow not peaceful little clearing, for a solid decade. It had been she who, in a way, put it here. Here, where his body had already turned to dust, but where the flower, thanks to the protective spells Arya herself had cast upon it, had remained. She had put it here by persuading Fäolin, before they set out together in order to carry Saphira's egg, to always bring it with him. He was never to let it go, she had told him. For if he were to die, she would always know that there would be a piece of him for her to bury in the ground, but which would never be destroyed. A piece of him to which she could express all her sadness, so that she could finally let it go. She would never have been able to see his body. But she could watch this flower.

And finally, she had come. After so many years, she had mustered the courage she needed to seek for this little piece of Fäolin. And she knew that it had been the right thing for her to do. For now, at last, after having felt the sorrow push her to the ground for so long, she could let it go. She could let the weight of it vanish from her slender shoulders. She could finally go on living the life Fäolin had wanted her to have.

Gently putting the flower back where it belonged, Arya stood up. Before she turned to walk away, she kicked the dirt back over the hole. No one but she was ever to know where the cause of all her sadness would always continue to rest.

As she walked away, back the same way she had come, her eyes glittered in the darkness, bright as they were with fresh tears.


End file.
